


Aces Over Queens

by xenoglossy



Category: Dangan-Ronpa
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Noir, F/F, Femme Fatale, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoglossy/pseuds/xenoglossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a wealthy and well-connected casino owner obstructs a police investigation into a possible theft, private eye Kirigiri is called in (unofficially) to assist. As the web of secrets and deceptions becomes more and more tangled, Kirigiri finds herself with an unexpected ally in the professional gambler Celes--but Celes has secrets of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aces Over Queens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss_Prince](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Prince/gifts).



The phone call came unexpectedly one November evening.

Business had been slower lately than Kirigiri would have liked, but that was the way the private detective business went. There were always dry spells here and there. So while under other circumstances she might have ignored the phone ringing just when she'd been about to close up shop for the evening, she couldn't afford to do it this time. She picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" said the voice on the other end.

"Oh, Naegi-kun, it's you," she said, trying not to sound too disappointed. "I was hoping it was a client."

"Well," Naegi said, "actually, I might have a job for you."

"A policeman hiring a private detective? That's... unusual."

"It's a bit of an unusual situation."

Kirigiri wasn't going to admit it, but her curiosity was piqued. "What is it?"

"We got an anonymous call recently about a theft that's supposed to take place in a few days at a casino in this area. The man who called gave a date and a time that he thought someone was planning to break into the vault and steal the contents." He paused, as if uncertain how to continue.

"And?" said Kirigiri. There had to be more to it than that. Strange anonymous tip-offs were a dime a dozen, and usually nonsense.

"Well, since we weren't very busy just then, we sent someone over to look into it, but as soon as the casino owner found out, he shut us down. He was very insistent about not wanting the police nosing around in his business."

Now Kirigiri saw where this was going. "You think that there's something suspicious about his reaction."

"I do. But his family practically owns this city, the police included. If he doesn't want us involved..." Naegi trailed off.

"Ah," said Kirigiri. "So you need the help of someone without such constraints."

"Exactly. It wouldn't be official, and we wouldn't be able to offer you much support, but-"

"Can you pay?" Kirigiri asked, although really, if she were honest with herself, she would do it regardless. 

"A little," Naegi said, sounding a bit sheepish.

"I'll be there tomorrow," Kirigiri said, and hung up the phone.

* * * *

On her first night in the city, Kirigiri headed to a bar across the street from the casino. Not out of pursuit of any personal enjoyment, of course, but because one could learn a lot by keeping one's ears open in a place where tongues were looser than usual. Besides, it was a way to side-step the difficulty with the casino owner for the time being.

Three hours and one very slowly nursed drink later, though, she'd found absolutely nothing of use. The whole evening had been a complete waste of time; she might as well have gone straight to the casino.

"You don't look like you're having much fun."

The voice was female and unfamiliar. Kirigiri turned around to see a young woman, probably about Kirigiri's own age, very pale with long black hair in elaborate spiraling curls. She was wearing an elegant black dress—more of an evening gown, really—which was entirely out of place in these run-down surroundings, but she didn't seem self-conscious at all.

"Did you bet it all on the wrong game?" the woman went on. 

"I'm not planning on betting on any games," Kirigiri said. "I'm in town on business, actually."

" What business might that be?" said the woman, settling herself on the stool next to Kirigiri's as if to indicate that she was in this conversation for the long haul. It shouldn't have been possible to look _dainty_ while sitting on a barstool, Kirigiri thought, yet with her upright posture and her hands primly folded in her lap, the woman might as well have been at some kind of Victorian tea party. 

"Consulting," Kirigiri told her. Looked at in the right way, it wasn't even a lie.

"Oh?" said the woman, propping her chin on her hands with a look of acute interest.

"It's quite dull, really," Kirigiri said. Maybe the woman would take the hint and leave her alone.

"Of course, of course. How silly of me to bore you with talk of business during your time off. May I buy you a drink?"

"I don't take drinks from strangers," Kirigiri said, realizing as she said it how childish it sounded, like she was repeating something mommy or daddy had told her about talking to strange women in bars. Not, of course, that either of her parents had been around long enough to tell her anything of the sort.

"Oh, that's right," said the woman, apparently undeterred. "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Celestia Ludenberg."

"That's not a Japanese name," Kirigiri said.

"No," said Celestia, pleasantly. "It isn't. May I ask your name?"

Kirigiri decided to let the evasion go for now. She wasn't here to investigate the mystery of the name of a woman at the bar; she wasn't going to waste her time on distractions. "My name is Kyouko Kirigiri," she said.

"A pleasure to meet you." Celestia's bright smile was somehow unsettling, but Kirigiri couldn't quite figure out why. Perhaps it was her imagination.

"Likewise, Ludenberg-san," Kirigiri said, trying not to stumble over the unfamiliar name.

"Please," said Celestia, "call me Celes."

It seemed a bit soon to be progressing to nicknames, but Kirigiri had to admit that it was less unwieldy than Ludenberg. "All right," she said. "Celes, then."

"And now that we've been properly introduced," Celes said, leaning towards Kirigiri just slightly, "perhaps I could buy you that drink?"

Kirigiri shook her head, as much to clear her mind as to decline the offer. What was she doing? This wasn't furthering the investigation at all, and since the whole evening had been fruitless, the most useful thing she could do now was to go back to her hotel and get a good night's rest, the better to pursue other avenues of inquiry in the morning. She stood up. "... I really should be going."

"Very well," said Celes, looking away. "Suit yourself."

"It's late," Kirigiri said, not sure why she was bothering to make excuses. "I have work to do tomorrow."

"Ah yes, consulting," said Celes. "It sounds very tiresome."

"It's my job," Kirigiri said. 

"Don't let me keep you, then," Celes said, sounding bored. She waved a hand lazily towards the door.

Kirigiri had the feeling that this interaction had gotten away from her somehow. "Of course not. Good night."

"Good night!" Celes called, but by that point Kirigiri was halfway to the door, and she didn't turn around.

* * * *

In the course of her career, Kirigiri had encountered her share of casinos, and in her experience, they came in two types: the dubiously-legal sort, dimly lit and claustrophobic and full of stale smoke, run out of basements and back rooms and the upper floors of buildings, and the mostly-legitimate variety, gaudy and bright and cheap, with vast floors filled with machines that all made noise, vying for the patrons' attention. She had been expecting this place to fall into the latter category, but it seemed rather to be in a class all its own. It was large and opulent, certainly, but it forewent the usual bells and whistles in favor of fine carpets in tasteful shades of green, wood-panelled walls, and ornately carved furniture. Everyone seemed to be elegantly dressed, far more so than Kirigiri in her serviceable but fairly plain suit, but this didn't worry her much. She had implemented the ever-useful blending-in method of acting as though she had every right to be there, and thus far, it appeared to have worked. No one had asked her any questions or paid her undue attention.

And then, turning a corner in one of the hallways, Kirigiri nearly ran right into someone. "Excuse me," she muttered, backing up a step. Then she saw who it was she'd almost tripped over. It was the woman from the bar last night—what was her name? Ah, Celes, that was it. 

"What are you doing here?" Kirigiri asked her.

Celes regarded her levelly. "I'm here on business, as it happens—I'm playing in a poker tournament from today through the eighteenth of the month. What are _you_ doing here?"

"You're a professional poker player?"

"No, not quite," said Celes, sounding a bit annoyed that Kirigiri would even ask such a thing. "Limiting oneself to a single game is so terribly dull. But you haven't answered my question."

"I have business here, too," Kirigiri said, glancing around the hallway, looking for the best escape route. "Which I really ought to be getting back to, if you don't mind-"

"Byakuya Togami hired a consultant?" Celes raised an eyebrow. "That _is_ a surprise. I would have thought that he would prefer to renounce all his worldly possessions and become a monk than to let someone tell him how to run his empire."

"You know the owner, then?" Kirigiri asked, keeping her tone casual, trying not to seem too eager or too nosy.

Celes gave a short, humorless laugh. "Better than I would like to."

Well, well. That certainly didn't sound like someone whose only connection to the man was participating in a tournament that happened to be held at his casino. It sounded, in point of fact, like someone who might have information which Kirigiri would be very interested in, and someone who might like Togami little enough to be willing to share it. Kirigiri decided to take a risk.

"I'm not working for him," she said.

Celes frowned. "Oh? Then what brings you here?"

"I have a friend," Kirigiri began, slowly, "who has reason to believe that something shady is going on here."

"In a building full of people with more money than scruples? You don't say." Celes smiled in a way that gave Kirigiri the uncomfortable feeling that she was being laughed at. 

"Given your acquaintance with the owner, you must be more aware of what happens at this casino than most."

"I wouldn't say that," Celes demurred, lowering her eyes.

"Still, I wonder if you've heard anything particularly... noteworthy, recently?"

"Noteworthy? No, I wouldn't say so," Celes said—a little too quickly, Kirigiri thought.

"You don't, for example, have any idea what reason a certain rich and unscrupulous acquaintance of yours might have to be skittish around the police?" Kirigiri pressed.

Something in Celes' expression closed off with the force of a steel door being slammed shut. "None at all, I'm afraid," she said, the edge of anger in her voice not very well disguised by the politeness of her tone. "And if you're going to interrogate me, shouldn't you show me your badge or read me my rights or whatever it is that you people do, first?"

"I'm not with the police," Kirigiri said, cursing herself silently for pushing too hard, being too unsubtle. "I'm just... looking into something. As a favor to a friend."

"Well, you can look into it elsewhere," said Celes stiffly. "And now if you'll excuse me, I should be returning to my game."

Without waiting for a response, Celes stalked off down the hall. Kirigiri watched her go, turning their conversation over in her mind. Celes did know something; that much was clear. If only Kirigiri knew how to find out what it was.

* * * *

The sun had already set by the time Kirigiri left the casino, and gusts of chilly wind whipped Kirigiri's hair into her face. Kirigiri ducked her head, shoved her hands into her pockets, and trudged back in the direction of her hotel. At least it wasn't far.

As she passed the dark, narrow mouth of an alleyway, she heard voices, and paused.

"... owe us," someone—a man—was saying. "And you'd better pay up."

"I- I can't." This voice was a woman's, high and scared. "Please, if I could only have more time..."

Kirigiri frowned. Was she imagining things, or did the woman sound familiar?

"You've had all the time you're going to get." This speaker was a man too, but definitely a different one, his voice higher than the first man's and not so rough. "Do you have the money or not?"

Kirigiri knew she probably shouldn't get involved. The last thing she needed was to run afoul of the sort of people who conducted their financial business in dark alleyways by intervening in a deal gone sour. But the familiarity of the woman's voice niggled at her. As long as she was careful not to be seen, it couldn't hurt to look, could it? 

She stepped carefully through the contents of a tipped-over trash can so as not to make noise, avoiding the pool of light provided by the nearest streetlamp, and flattened herself against the wall of one of the brick buildings flanking the alley. She peered around the corner, towards the source of the voices.

The three figures—two men and a woman, as the voices had suggested—were standing closer than Kirigiri had realized, only a few yards away from the corner where she stood. Even in the dim light, there was no mistaking the woman's identity. The dress, that ridiculous hairstyle—it had to be Celes. The men were strangers to Kirigiri. One of them—the larger and more muscular of the two, probably the first one who'd spoken—held Celes' arms behind her back. The other man stood in front of Celes, facing away from Kirigiri.

"I don't have it," Celes said, looking down. "Please, I-"

"That's a shame," said the second man, shaking his head. Then—well, Kirigiri couldn't be certain, with the darkness and the way the man was facing, but his motions looked very much as though he'd just reached into his jacket and pulled a gun on Celes.

It would, Kirigiri thought, be very inconvenient for her investigation if Celes were to be shot in an alleyway now. This was the only lead she had at the moment, after all. She scanned the rubbish at her feet for something hefty enough to do some damage, and lit on a glass jar still half-full of some sort of unpleasant gooey substance.

She picked up the jar and hurled it as hard as she could in the direction of the man with his back to her. It hit the back of his head with a dull thud and he pitched forward and fell to the ground, dropping the gun. He made no move to get up—he must have lost consciousness. Kirigiri hoped so, at least.

The jar shattered when it hit the ground, its contents splattering on the concrete. Celes stepped back, looking disgusted, then seemed to notice that the man who had been holding her was no longer doing so—he'd let go in surprise when Kirigiri's improvised projectile had hit his friend. The still-standing thug made a grab for his fallen compatriot's gun, but Celes got there first. She snatched up the weapon and, hands shaking, aimed it at the second man.

The second man muttered something to Celes that Kirigiri couldn't quite catch, and then, seeming to decide that the odds had tipped against him, made a hasty retreat down the alley, away from Kirigiri. Celes ran the other way, dropping the handgun into the pile of trash as she went.

Then the high heel of one of Celes' shoes caught on a bit of uneven sidewalk and Celes lost her balance, sprawling forward onto the pavement. Almost without thinking, Kirigiri offered her a hand up.

"No thank you," said Celes, picking herself up and smoothing out her skirt. "Those gloves are filthy."

Celes was right, Kirigiri realized, and wiped her hands awkwardly on her jacket. 

"What are you doing here?" Celes narrowed her eyes. "Were you following me?"

Kirigiri shook her head. "I was just passing by, and I heard the..." She paused for a moment, searching for the right word. "... the disagreement taking place."

"I see," said Celes, but she still looked a bit dubious. "Well, we shouldn't stay here."

"No, probably not," Kirigiri agreed.

Celes didn't, however, seem inclined to start moving in any particular direction, so after a moment, Kirigiri began walking once more in the direction of her hotel. Celes followed. An uncomfortable silence settled between them.

"Who were they?" Kirigiri asked at last, once they had gotten several blocks away from the scene of the incident. "Yakuza?"

"I don't see what business it is of yours," Celes snapped.

"Well, I may just have given one of them brain damage," Kirigiri said. 

Celes sighed and looked down, avoiding Kirigiri's eyes. "All right." She took a deep breath, then went on. "When I gamble, I'm accustomed to winning. Losing is not a possibility that I even consider. But recently I... made a miscalculation."

"A miscalculation?"

"Never mind what it was, exactly. I bet more than I had, and I lost. And when I couldn't pay in full, certain parties were unhappy with me. As you saw." Celes gestured back the way they'd come.

"Ah," said Kirigiri. "... I'm sorry."

"There's no need for that," Celes said, putting on an unconvincing smile. "It was my own silly mistake."

Kirigiri could not dispute that the situation was of Celes' own making, but she found herself feeling rather sorry for Celes anyway. She had seemed so scared, back there in the alley. And besides, sending two large, armed men to rough up someone who didn't seem capable of fighting back was hardly fair. But Celes didn't seem to want sympathy, and Kirigiri wasn't sure what else to say. The uncomfortable silence descended again.

After a few minutes of this, Kirigiri stopped in front of a hotel a few blocks from the turn onto the street her actual hotel was on—perhaps she was being paranoid, but she didn't want to lead a stranger with an unknown entanglement with the party she was investigating directly to her lodgings. 

"Well," she said, with some relief, "I suppose this is where we part ways."

"I suppose it is," said Celes. "Good night."

Kirigiri stood there and watched Celes make her way down the street, a black form blurring into the shadows of the buildings. Only once she was well out of sight did Kirigiri begin walking back to her own hotel.

* * * *

"Excuse me," Kirigiri said to the guard at the desk in the casino's security office, "I think I lost my wallet."

The guard, who seemed as though she had been half-asleep, looked up at Kirigiri, blinking. "Oh," she said, after a moment. "Your wallet, right. What'd it look like?"

"It was red," Kirigiri invented, "made of leather. About this big." She sketched a small rectangle in the air with her hands. 

The guard frowned. "No one's turned anything like that in today."

"What about yesterday?" Kirigiri said. "I think it was yesterday I lost it. Or perhaps the day before."

The guard tilted her head and sucked air in through her teeth and said nothing.

"Please," Kirigiri said, hoping she looked suitably anxious, "if you could just check..."

The guard sighed. "All right, I'll go take a look for it in the back."

"Thank you so much-" Kirigiri paused to check the guard's nametag- "Sugimoto-san."

"It's no trouble," said the guard, in a tone that suggested just the opposite. She hauled herself to her feet and disappeared through a doorway in the back wall, behind the desk.

Once Sugimoto the guard was out of sight, Kirigiri slipped behind the desk and began sorting through the papers there. It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for: a schedule of guards on duty for this week. 

The theft, according to the anonymous report, was supposed to be planned for sometime after five in the evening on the eighteenth, four days away. Kirigiri scanned the list of surnames scheduled for shifts on that evening. Inoue, Yamazaki, Hayashi, Shikiba... aha, and it looked like Shikiba was scheduled tonight, as well. She could start by talking to him.

The sound of footsteps alerted Kirigiri to the fact that Sugimoto-the-guard was returning. Kirigiri replaced the papers where she had found them and went back to the side of the desk she was supposed to be on just before the door to the back room swung open.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Sugimoto said as she settled back into her seat, looking even more irritated than before. "We don't have any red wallets."

"Well, thank you anyway," Kirigiri said. Then, as if she'd just thought of it, she said, "Oh! Is there a guard called... ah..." She frowned, as if trying to remember. "Er, Shikata or Shikiba or something like that? I remember I was talking to him just before I realized I had lost my wallet. Maybe he saw it."

Sugimoto snorted. "Maybe he did, but we've got no way of knowing, because he's decided not to show up for work today."

"He called in sick...?" 

"I wish he had," Sugimoto said. "No, he was supposed to be here an hour ago, and he's nowhere to be found. No phone call, nothing. I called his house three times—no answer. Inconsiderate, that's what it is."

"Very irresponsible," Kirigiri agreed. "Does he do this often?"

"No, this is the first time. But he's only been here a month or two—maybe he was still on his best behavior. Who knows." Sugimoto shrugged.

"I hope it doesn't become a habit, then," said Kirigiri.

"If it does, he won't be working here much longer," Sugimoto said darkly.

Kirigiri nodded. "Of course. Well, assuming he hasn't been fired, perhaps I can ask for him next time I'm here. If you could remind me again of his name...?"

"It's Shikiba. Santa Shikiba. He should be on tomorrow evening at five, if he bothers to show up then."

"Thank you," said Kirigiri.

"Don't mention it," said Sugimoto. "Sorry about your wallet."

"That's all right," said Kirigiri. "I'll keep looking."

* * * *

There was only one Santa Shikiba in the phone book—"Santa" wasn't a terribly common name, especially not when spelled with the character for "rice field" three times—so finding the address, at least, was easy. Finding a house in an unfamiliar area after dark was bound to be trickier, but she didn't know anyone around here she could ask to help her—she certainly couldn't expect Naegi to set aside his work at the precinct to aid her on what might be a complete wild goose chase. So she got a walking map of the city from the front desk of the hotel, located Shikiba's apartment building on it, and set off.

Shikiba didn't live too far from the downtown area which held the casino and Kirigiri's hotel, but the buildings became noticeably smaller, shabbier, and in worse repair the closer she got to her destination. Shikiba's building was no exception to the rule—it was a wooden building, two stories high, which had the look of a structure which had been hastily put together and was now falling apart due to shoddy construction rather than age. 

When Kirigiri entered, she found a dimly-lit front hall branching into several even dimmer corridors devoid of indication as to who might live in which apartment. Kirigiri deliberated for a moment. How to proceed? She could hardly go knocking on every door in the building.

An older woman came out of one of the apartments nearest the front entrance, carrying a basket of laundry.

"Excuse me," said Kirigiri.

The woman paused. "Yes?"

"I'm looking for a friend of mine, Santa Shikiba. I was supposed to meet him here, but he didn't say which apartment was his..."

The woman chewed a fingernail thoughtfully. "Santa Shikiba, Santa Shikiba... ah yes, I think I know who you mean. Stocky lad, dark hair, keeps himself to himself mostly, yes?"

Kirigiri had no idea how accurate the description was, but she nodded.

"Down the hall that way, I think," she said, pointing, "second or third door on the right. Don't remember exactly—as I said, he doesn't talk to any of us much. A real enigma, he is."

"I see," Kirigiri said. "Thank you."

She made her way upstairs and knocked on the second door to the right. The thin, tired-looking young woman who answered the door explained, apologetically, that her equally thin and tired-looking husband was not, in fact, Santa Shikiba, then excused herself to attend to a crying infant. Kirigiri said that she was sorry for the intrusion and tried the third door instead.

This time no one answered Kirigiri's knock. She slowly counted to ten under her breath, then tried again. Still no response. She tested the handle and, to her surprise, found the door unlocked. Very odd, Kirigiri thought. Who would leave their door open in a neighborhood like this?

Kirigiri eased the door open and went inside. It was a one-room affair, and sparsely-furnished—a futon and a chest of drawers and a small kitchen area and not much else. There was a door towards the back of the room which she assumed led to a bathroom. There was no decoration of any kind—no curtains, no rugs or mats to cover the wood floor, no pictures on the walls, no houseplants. And, unless he happened to be in the bathroom at the moment, there was no Santa Shikiba. Then again, to be honest, she hadn't expected there to be.

There was something white in the middle of the floor, a piece of paper. She bent down to pick it up and noticed something else: an irregularly-shaped, dark red-brown splotch on the floor, a little larger than her hand.

She leaned in closer and sniffed at it, catching the tell-tale tang of copper. Prodding at it with the tip of one gloved finger, she found it was clotted, but still not entirely dry—recent, but not too recent. This lent a certain amount of support to her suspicion that if Shikiba had gone missing, it hadn't been his own idea.

She picked up the scrap of paper that had first caught her eye and examined it. It was half a train ticket in the name of Santa Shikiba, spattered with blood, but still readable. The destination must have been listed on the missing half, but the date of travel was the 17th, still several days away, and it seemed to be one-way. So had he been planning to leave town after all, just not so soon? Why might that be? She pocketed the torn ticket for future reference, then turned her attention to the rest of the crime scene.

She scanned the kitchen first. It didn't appear to be much used—Shikiba seemed to be a typical bachelor when it came to cooking. The counters were a bit dusty, as were the plain white china dishes in the cabinet over the sink, and the sink itself looked clean in a way that suggested that no dishes had ever been washed in it.

The futon was unmade, but there was nothing on it beyond the usual assortment of pillows, sheets, and blankets. They were cheap, mass-produced things; fairly new, Kirigiri thought, though not often washed. 

This apartment was too spare. Some people were naturally more Spartan than others when it came to personal effects, but one way or another, most homes accumulated a certain amount of detritus in the course of everyday life. This one hadn't. And what possessions Shikiba seemed to have were bland to the point that it had to be calculated. No one, in short, was actually this boring unless they were making an effort to be.

Kirigiri turned next to the drawers. The bottom one held plain, dark-colored trousers in a fairly large size; the middle drawer, plain button-down white shirts. The top drawer held underwear and socks (clean, thankfully) –and something black and oblong. Kirigiri extracted it from the drawer and examined it more closely.

It was a pocket camera—fairly inexpensive, and more the kind one would use for taking vacation photos than anything that suggested a serious interest in photography, but certainly the closest thing to a luxury she'd seen in this apartment. She slipped it into the pocket of her jacket, making a mental note to drop it off at a photography shop on the way back to her hotel. Developing the negatives might not tell her anything useful, but it certainly couldn't hurt. 

A quick search of the bathroom turned up nothing more fascinating than unscented bar soap, and so Kirigiri decided she'd seen enough for now. She left the apartment, shutting the door behind her.

The older woman who had been there earlier was passing through the hall again now, her laundry basket empty. "Did you find him, dear?" she asked Kirigiri as she went by.

"No," Kirigiri said. "I knocked, but there was no answer."

"Well, he works strange hours, that boy. I see him leaving most evenings when I'm on my way back from buying the fish and vegetables for dinner, and then I suppose he comes home in the wee hours of the morning. So perhaps he's still at work."

"He said he would be here tonight, though," Kirigiri said, trying to look like a concerned friend (although she wasn't quite sure what a concerned friend ought to look like). "You haven't seen him today, have you?"

The woman shook her head. "No, I don't believe so. I saw him going off to work yesterday—or was it the day before?" She paused for a moment in thought. "No, I'm certain it was yesterday, because I had bought radishes, and I remember thinking-"

"I see," Kirigiri said quickly. "Well, thank you. Perhaps he stayed somewhere else last night after work. Or perhaps he's here and still asleep."

"I thought I heard him come in last night," said the neighbor, "but I suppose I must have been mistaken."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he passes my apartment on his way in and out, and I'm a very light sleeper, so I hear him sometimes. In the middle of the night last night I heard a clattering in the hallway, so I thought it was him—though come to think of it, it didn't sound much like a person walking."

Kirigiri frowned. "What did it sound like?"

"It was a sort of rolling, rattling sound—like someone was moving furniture, maybe. Terrible time to do it, though, if you ask me."

Or like someone was moving a body, Kirigiri thought, but didn't say.

"I do hope he's all right," the woman went on, heedless of Kirigiri's silence. "Not, of course, that we're very close—so quiet, he is, as I said. Barely said a word to me or anyone else in this building in the two months, more or less, he's been here. But that's life in the big city, I suppose. No one wants to get to know their neighbors here, do they?"

"No," said Kirigiri, "I suppose not. But I had really better be going."

* * * *

As she walked from her hotel to the casino the next morning, Kirigiri's mind whirled. She'd come here to investigate an alleged planned theft and some strange behavior from a casino owner, and she'd made little headway on either of those things—but now she had a missing-persons case which might very well be murder, on top of it all.

When she'd called him last night to tell him about what she'd found, Naegi had asked her if she really thought it was all connected—but it had to be, didn't it? It would be a strange coincidence if the planned theft of the casino, the defensive behavior of the casino owner, and the mysterious disappearance of one of the guards meant to be on duty the night of the theft had nothing to do with one another. The question, rather, was _how_ they were connected, and that, unfortunately, was a question she had no answer to. 

Well, not yet. She'd dropped off that camera, and she'd asked Naegi to look out for any stocky, dark-haired John Does who had died in suspicious manners of the sort that might cause bleeding. He'd said there wasn't much he could do—apparently most of the department's resources were currently tied up in an attempt to track a particularly slippery serial killer, and there was no proof that what she had was even a single murder—but that much, at least, he could manage. So perhaps she'd have more information on Santa Shikiba soon. In the meantime, she had better focus on finding out more about Togami and the theft which might or might not be taking place in just a few days.

When Kirigiri reached the casino, Celes was waiting on the steps outside. Kirigiri tried to walk past her without a word—this was all complicated enough without her, really. Then Celes reached out and grabbed Kirigiri's wrist, with surprising strength, Kirigiri had to admit, for someone with hands as soft and delicate as Celes'. Kirigiri froze.

"I would like to talk to you," Celes said in a low voice, speaking close to Kirigiri's ear.

Kirigiri yanked her wrist out of Celes' grasp. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Not here," said Celes.

"All right," Kirigiri said, with grudging curiosity. "Where, then?"

Celes led Kirigiri to a small café—Western-style, very trendy. They took a seat at a table in the corner, as far as possible from the rest of the clientele, and ordered coffees and croissants. After the waitress departed, they sat there for a moment in silence.

"Really I prefer milk tea," Celes said, in a confidential tone. "But it is so terribly difficult to find someone who can prepare it correctly. Yamada—ah, my former assistant always used to ruin-"

"What did you want to talk about?" Kirigiri said. She doubted that beverage preferences merited that kind of urgency.

"... Ah, yes," said Celes. "Forgive me, I was distracted. And it is... somewhat of a delicate subject."

"You were the one who brought it up."

"Well, if you insist," said Celes, "I'll come straight to the point."

She paused, perhaps expecting some encouragement, perhaps simply for dramatic effect. Kirigiri waited for her to go on.

"I've been thinking about our conversation the other day," Celes continued. "You implied that you were investigating a certain acquaintance of mine, and at the time, I fear, I didn't react well. But having given it some thought, I've changed my mind. I want to help you."

"I see," said Kirigiri slowly. Whatever she had been expecting, that hadn't been it. "What made you change your mind?"

"Perhaps I want to repay you for saving my life. Would that be so strange?"

"No, but surely this isn't the only way you could have expressed your gratitude. And you seemed very much against answering my questions when last we spoke."

Celes looked down at the table. "To tell the truth..." she began, her voice so soft that Kirigiri had to lean forward to listen, "I was afraid of him."

"Of Togami?"

Celes nodded. "I was afraid of what he might do if I told someone about what he was doing. He's a very powerful man, and I... I don't have any way to defend myself against someone like that." She wrapped her arms around herself as if for protection.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you think it might endanger you," Kirigiri said.

"No," said Celes, "it's the least I can do, really. You put yourself in danger for my sake the other night. You didn't have to do that—you hardly even know me."

Kirigiri looked away. "They would have killed you. I couldn't just walk past when someone's life was in danger."

Just then the waitress came by with the coffee and the pastries, and for a few moments Kirigiri picked at her croissant while Celes sipped her coffee in silence. Then Celes began speaking again.

"I told you before that I owe money—and you saw how... insistent my creditors are. It's something I've tried to keep quiet, but Togami found out somehow. He has connections everywhere, you see."

Kirigiri nodded. "Go on."

"He was, he said, in a similar situation—he hadn't lost the money himself, or so he claimed, but a relative had made a bad investment and the entire business empire was feeling the effects. He was, of course, determined to rebuild it through legitimate effort eventually, but just at the moment he was in need of a certain amount of money very quickly in order to appease certain parties who were getting restless. And since I was, too, he thought we could make a mutually-beneficial deal."

"Which was...?"

"The high-stakes poker tournament." Celes took a long sip of her coffee and grimaced, as if it had been bitterer than she'd expected. "It's rigged, you see. He would make sure that I won, and then he would take what he needed from the winnings. I would get the rest to pay off my debt. If I backed out before the tournament was over, he'd turn me over to the leader of the thugs you saw the other night. And if I tried to make off with more than my share of the money, well, as impoverished as he may be, some dangerous people still owe his family favors. But if I fulfilled my end of the deal, I would be free to go, and we need never see one another again." Celes paused, and stirred more cream into her coffee with an air of intense concentration.

Kirigiri digested this information for a moment. "So that's why he reacted badly when the police came to ask him about the theft?"

Celes went pale, and her fingers tightened on the handle of her cup. "Theft? I... I thought they were asking about the game."

"Well, I don't believe they had the opportunity to specify one way or the other, but they went to speak to him in the first place because they'd had an anonymous phone call stating that a theft was going to take place at his casino in a few days."

"I hadn't heard anything about that," Celes said.

"The theft or the phone call?"

"Either one."

Kirigiri was not convinced, but thought it best not to push the matter just now. "I see. Well, the information you've given me is very helpful, regardless—although I hope that you won't be offended if I ask for some proof of what you've just said. If, for example, there are any financial documents that would back up your assertion about the state of the Togami family's finances..."

"No, I quite understand," said Celes. "Why should you take my word for it? I believe he keeps some papers of that sort in his office in the casino."

"Would it be possible for me to get into the office and look around?"

Celes shrugged and took another sip of her coffee. "He's in it most of the day, and when he's not he generally keeps it locked. There's only one key, which he carries on his person."

"Perhaps if he could be distracted—made to step away from his office very briefly? He might not think to lock it then."

"That could probably be arranged." Celes grinned.

"Oh, no, I didn't mean- that is, you don't have to..." 

"Oh? And how were you planning to get him out of the office, then? He knows me, and I think he trusts me, if only because he could ruin me if he wanted to. I can pretend to have some kind of urgent question, something I need him to look at... even when it turns out to be nothing, I don't think he'll suspect I'm up to anything."

"Why are you doing this?"

Celes cocked her head. "Doing what?"

"Helping me. I know, you said you owed me a favor, but you've just confessed to something that would get you in trouble with both Togami and the police if they knew, and now you're going to put yourself at risk again to help a stranger steal from this man you've got a business arrangement with—why? What do you get out of it?"

Celes bit her lip and gazed down at her hands, which were folded on the edge of the table. "I want to see Togami taken down," she said at last. Her voice was quiet, but there was a vehemence there that took Kirigiri by surprise. "If you're going to make sure that he's locked up, then I'll do whatever I can to help."

"Yes, but _why_? You had a mutually-beneficial arrangement, you said, one you could walk away from at the end with no ill effects."

"That was the line he fed me, yes," said Celes. "But then he made me... I... I had to..." She broke off, tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. 

"I- I'm sorry," Kirigiri said, but Celes didn't react. Awkwardly, impulsively, Kirigiri reached across the table and put her hand over Celes'. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"... Thank you," said Celes, making no move to pull away. She wiped her eyes with her free hand and gave a small smile. "Look at me, losing my composure in public. How embarrassing."

"It's all right," Kirigiri said. "I don't think anyone noticed."

"Well," said Celes, "we ought to get back to the casino, don't you think? We have work to do."

* * * *

Kirigiri crouched in an alcove down the hall from the owner's office, on the top floor of the casino, waiting for her moment. If, that was, the moment ever came. She shifted, impatient. Through the heavy wooden door of the office she could hear Celes' and Togami's voices only as a muffled murmur, the individual words indistinct. Was the plan working?

The door swung open, and Kirigiri held her breath.

"I really think you should come see for yourself," Celes was saying. "Please."

"Oh, all right," said a cold, sharp voice which must have belonged to Togami. "This had better be _very_ important."

The door opened further, and Celes exited, her hand on the arm of a tall, thin blond man in an impeccable black suit. She flashed a triumphant smile in Kirigiri's general direction as she passed, and Kirigiri found herself smiling back.

Togami and Celes turned a corner and disappeared. Kirigiri waited a moment to make sure no one else was coming, then got up and made her way to the office, her footsteps barely making a sound on the lush carpet. That was going to make it difficult to tell when Togami was getting close, but there wasn't much that could be done about that. She left the door open a crack and hoped that Celes had the presence of mind to strike up a loud conversation once she and Togami were nearby.

The walls of the office were lined with bookshelves filled with tasteful leather-bound volumes; the elegant wooden desk and chair looked as though they might be antiques; the filing cabinets probably weren't, but they were tasteful and well-matched to the rest of the furniture. This was, in short, the office of someone who wanted visitors to be aware that he had quite a lot of money, but he wasn't going to be _tacky_ about it.

She tried to open the top drawer of one of the filing cabinets, but it wouldn't move—it seemed to be locked. Kirigiri hoped that Togami hadn't taken that key with him, too. She scanned the top of the desk, then opened the drawer. It was full of neatly-organized stationery—pens, paper, envelopes, and the like, all in their own little sections, not a one out of place. Except... a glint of metal half-hidden under an envelope caught her eye. Could that be...?

Careful not to disturb anything else, she moved the envelope aside to reveal a small key of the sort which might very well open a filing cabinet. She tried it, and let out a breath of relief when it turned smoothly in the lock.

The files proved to be sorted by subject and alphabetized, which was convenient. Kirigiri found the "Finances" section, organized by year, and skipped to the end—but the most recent document there was dated two years ago.

Of course, if his financial state was a secret he would hardly want to file those documents neatly with the rest, where anyone could find them—well, anyone with the wherewithal to get into a locked filing cabinet in a usually-locked office, anyway. Where else would they be, then? Not the desk drawer, for certain. Elsewhere in the filing cabinet? Hidden amongst the books on the shelves? She didn't have time for a thorough search. Celes had only been able to promise a short diversion.

As she scanned the room, Kirigiri's gaze fell on a leather briefcase leaning against the leg of the desk. Maybe he didn't keep the documents in the office at all. Maybe he preferred to carry them with him, to be on the safe side.

Kirigiri opened the briefcase and sorted through its contents as quickly as possible. This was a collection of washing bills, this was a collection of fairly dull personal correspondence, this was a property insurance document, and this—aha, _this_ sheaf of papers looked promising. 

Just then, she heard voices in the hallway.

"... deliberately wasting my time?" Was that Togami? He wasn't shouting, but his voice, frostier than before, carried clearly down the hallway.

"I'm sorry!" That was definitely Celes. "I just thought-"

"Well, you were clearly mistaken."

Kirigiri shoved the papers into her jacket and peered out the door. They hadn't turned the corner yet—good. She slipped out of the office, closing the door as quietly as possible, and dashed back to her hiding place.

Togami and Celes came around the corner seconds later, Togami a few paces ahead, not looking at Celes. They paused in front of the office door.

"You should get back to your tournament," he said. "Your next game is scheduled to start in less than five minutes, and if you miss it, you can hardly keep up your end of our deal. You do realize what will happen in that case, don't you?"

"I know," Celes said, her voice meek and cowed. Kirigiri wondered how much of that was genuine and how much pretense. "I'll go now."

"Good," said Togami. He entered the office, shutting the door loudly behind him, and Celes hurried down the hall, back towards the stairs.

* * * *

When Kirigiri left that evening, Celes was waiting outside again.

"Ah, there you are," she said. "You took so long I thought you might have forgotten, and I'm starved. Let's go."

Kirigiri stared at her, puzzled, but before she could say anything, Celes took her arm and led her down the street.

"What are you _doing_?" Kirigiri said, once she'd gathered her wits again.

Celes raised a finger to her lips. "Not so loud," she said in a low voice, her mouth close to Kirigiri's ear. "We're going somewhere we can talk."

Her breath was hot on Kirigiri's cheek, her hand still on Kirigiri's arm, and Kirigiri had been feeling that this was all a little melodramatic, but somehow she couldn't think of a good reason not to go with Celes, and so she went.

Their destination this time was a cheap ramen place, loud ("so no one will overhear us," Celes said) and brightly-lit—a stark contrast to the café that morning. Inhaling the smell of the pork broth, Kirigiri realized that she was hungrier than she had thought—so while a part of her was impatient to get to the point, secretly she was rather glad that Celes waited until the food arrived to start talking shop.

"So," Celes said at last, between bites of noodles. "Did you find the papers?"

Kirigiri patted the side of her jacket and heard the reassuring rustle of paper underneath. "I have them."

Celes' chopsticks stopped halfway to her mouth as she looked at Kirigiri, eyes wide. "You _took_ them?"

"I didn't have time to read them in the office."

"Togami isn't going to be pleased when he realizes they're gone, you know."

Kirigiri sighed. "I know. I'll read them tonight and maybe you can slip them back in his briefcase tomorrow before he notices they're missing."

"Maybe," said Celes, but she sounded doubtful.

"Anyway, he can't do much to me if he doesn't know who I am, can he?"

"I suppose not—but he knows who _I_ am, and if he suspects that I distracted him on purpose..." Celes trailed off meaningfully.

"I thought you said he wouldn't suspect you of anything."

"Well, I expected you to _look_ at the papers, not _steal_ them," Celes snapped. "The former would have been much less noticeable."

That was true enough, and Celes _was_ putting herself more at risk in all this than Kirigiri was, so Kirigiri supposed she couldn't argue. "Look, I'm sorry, but I had to examine them more closely than I could do in two minutes. I'll give them to you to give back to him tomorrow morning as soon as the casino opens. I promise."

"All right," said Celes. "See that you do."

* * * *

Kirigiri barely slept that night. It didn't take that long to peruse the documents and see that they indeed supported Celes' story, but as she lay in her hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, she couldn't stop turning the situation over and over in her mind. Perhaps the question about Togami and his reaction to the police had been answered—though she still couldn't be certain of that, even with Celes and the papers and the bit of overheard conversation from the hallway—but what about the theft and the mysterious disappearance of Santa Shikiba?

It was always possible that they were entirely unrelated, but Kirigiri wasn't satisfied with that answer. Celes' reaction to Kirigiri's mention of the theft earlier suggested that she knew something about it, and a security guard scheduled for duty the night of the theft turning up missing—possibly dead—a few days beforehand seemed like it had to be significant somehow. And if the rigged game and the theft were related, and the theft and the disappearance were related...

A vague, lurking suspicion began to take shape in Kirigiri's mind. Togami was unquestionably short on funds, and if Celes was to be believed, he had few qualms about resorting to unlawful methods to accomplish his ends. What if the theft wasn't real in the first place? What if it was all meant to be staged? The money kept in the casino was insured against theft; she had seen the papers in his briefcase. If he was a good enough liar, he could collect on the insurance without the tiresome necessity of having actually been robbed first, and that would certainly be helpful for a man in his position.

As for Shikiba... well, he was a security guard, and the job of a security guard was to be observant and alert to odd goings-on in the place that they were guarding. Supposing Shikiba had overheard something or seen something he shouldn't have? Supposing he had found out about the theft, if not specifically who was involved? He could, Kirigiri realized, have been the police's anonymous caller. That might make him enough of a threat to be worth getting rid of. And if Togami really did have favors to call in from dangerous people, he wouldn't even have to get his own hands dirty.

But how was Celes involved in all this? It didn't end with the poker game, Kirigiri was sure. She thought of Celes in the café that morning, of how upset she'd seemed. What had Togami done? What had he made Celes do? She knew about the theft—why would he have told her? Did he need her help with it somehow? Was he setting her up to take the fall?

Kirigiri sighed. It was all a nice story, but she had no proof of any of this. She couldn't go to Naegi with vague suppositions and the word of a woman who was clearly still keeping some secrets. She would have to keep looking.

* * * *

Kirigiri returned the papers to Celes the next morning and Celes stowed them in her handbag with the promise to return them to Togami as soon as she could. That, unfortunately, was the only thing resembling progress that happened all day. None of the staff she talked to knew anything, no new leads turned up, and at the end of the day she had no more concrete evidence of anything than she had had to start with. The police didn't seem to have found anything about Santa Shikiba's disappearance either, if they'd even been looking. The investigation had ground to a halt, and Kirigiri was not pleased with herself or with anyone else.

Celes was waiting out front again when she left. 

"Did you give him the papers back?" Kirigiri asked her.

"I keep telling you," Celes whispered, "we can't talk here."

Kirigiri sighed. She wasn't really in the mood for this tonight. "Why don't you walk back to my hotel with me, and we'll talk along the way."

"All right," said Celes.

A little ways down the street, Celes looked around furtively as if to ensure that no one was following them, then said, "I put them back in his briefcase this morning. I don't think he saw."

"Had he noticed that they were missing?"

Celes shrugged. "He didn't say anything."

"Well," said Kirigiri, "I suppose that's a good sign."

"I certainly hope so," said Celes.

They walked on in silence for a while through the deepening darkness. A cold drizzle started up, and Celes took Kirigiri's arm again—for warmth, perhaps. Kirigiri didn't move away. It _was_ chilly.

They turned down an ill-lit side street, and Kirigiri began to feel uneasy. Perhaps it was just the darkness, or perhaps Celes' paranoia was contagious , but she had the distinct feeling that they were being watched.

"Stop for a minute," she told Celes quietly.

Celes stopped. "What is it?"

"Do you hear something?"

Celes listened for a minute. "... I'm not certain. With the wind and the rain..."

Kirigiri shook her head. "Maybe I'm imagining things."

"Imagining what?" said Celes.

"Nothing," said Kirigiri. "It's nothing." Celes already seemed nervous enough without any help from her. She started walking again, but she didn't feel at all reassured.

They came to the end of the street and turned a corner, and almost ran directly into two men. Before Kirigiri had time to register what was happening, a fist slammed into her face, and she hit the ground hard.

She lay there for a moment, dazed, feeling the cold wetness of the pavement seeping through her jacket. Then her jaw started to throb and her mind seemed to catch up with events. She'd been stupid. She should've given more weight to her suspicions. She should've stuck to well-lit roads and public places. But it was no use lying here feeling sorry for herself. 

She tried to get up, but she couldn't seem to manage. The man who'd punched her had his foot on her stomach, she realized. She tried to roll away, but she couldn't get free. Where was Celes? From this position, Kirigiri couldn't see her. 

"I've been asked to remind you," said the man, grinding his boot in harder, "that going through other people's things is extremely impolite. Those were his exact words, I think."

Kirigiri felt a little ill, and not only from the pain. So Togami had not only found out about the papers, he had found out she was the one who'd taken them. Maybe Celes was right—maybe everything that happened within the confines of his casino really did get back to him eventually.

She said nothing to the man, only kept struggling to get up. She tried to get her feet under her and push herself upright that way, but her boots skidded on the wet pavement, and the man laughed. She grabbed his ankle with both hands in a last-ditch attempt to pull him off-balance, desperately wishing she had brought a weapon or studied martial arts or _something_ that would have prepared her for this situation.

There was a sudden loud noise and the man standing on Kirigiri stumbled and fell back. For a second she thought she'd succeeded in upsetting his balance, but then she realized that the noise had been a gunshot. She scrambled to her feet just in time to see Celes aiming a small handgun at the second man and firing a shot into his leg.

Celes then dropped the gun calmly into her handbag and grabbed Kirigiri's hand. "Come on," she said. "I've only wounded them, they'll be back on their feet any minute."

They took off running, zig-zagging wildly through the back streets of the city. Kirigiri's legs burned and her breath came in ragged gasps, but she could hear the footsteps of at least one pursuer behind her, so she kept going.

"I don't think I can do this anymore," Celes panted.

Kirigiri barely had the breath to reply herself. She looked around quickly—whoever had been chasing them was out of sight, though she could hear his footsteps drawing closer. There was a nondescript door in a nondescript brick building up ahead—maybe a warehouse. She ran for the door, tried the handle, and, finding it open, went in, pulling Celes along with her.

The room they'd entered was dim and smoky and full of noise, but Kirigiri had never been so glad to be anywhere in her life. She slumped against a wall and tried to get her breath back, coughing and sputtering. Her lungs felt like they were on fire. She hadn't had to run like that in a while; most cases that ended up on a private investigator's desk were a little more sedate, and she'd clearly let herself get out of shape.

Celes seemed in even worse shape; she'd sunk all the way to the floor. 

"Are you all right?" Kirigiri asked, once she could talk again.

"I-" Celes began hoarsely, then cleared her throat and tried again. "I think so."

Kirigiri offered Celes her hand, and Celes took it and pulled herself up. 

"Where are we?" she asked, dusting off her skirt and attempting to smooth her hair back into place to little avail.

Kirigiri peered around the room. Through the hazy air and the crowds of people, she could see a roped-off area in the center where an extremely large and muscular woman and an equally large and muscular man were throwing punches at each other.

"It seems to be a boxing club," Kirigiri said. 

"So I see," said Celes, glancing over at the ring, where the woman had just sent her opponent tumbling to the floor. "But the question is, rather, where is the boxing club?"

"I wasn't exactly keeping track of which way we were running," Kirigiri admitted. "And you know this city better than I do, at any rate."

"I've only been here a few months," Celes said.

Kirigiri leaned back against the wall again and shut her eyes. She felt suddenly exhausted. "We'll figure it out, I'm sure."

The bell dinged for the end of the round; the chatter of the spectators grew louder. The woman boxer went over to the side of the ring to confer briefly with a shorter woman with a ponytail; then the match started up again. Kirigiri tried to will herself to stand up properly and do something, but all her energy had gone out of her.

"Do you think they're gone?" Celes said.

Kirigiri shrugged. "They might be waiting outside."

"I don't think they saw us come in," said Celes. "We might at least look."

"If they are there, what are you going to do? Shoot them again?"

"If I have to," said Celes evenly.

"Where did you learn how to do that?" Kirigiri asked. "And why? It's... something of an unusual skill."

"I move in some rather rough circles," Celes said. "Sometimes it's useful to be able to defend oneself."

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing that you did," said Kirigiri. "Who knows what might have happened back there, otherwise?"

Celes smiled. "Now we're even."

Kirigiri managed to force some strength into her legs again—enough to stand up, although walking was still a shaky proposition. "I'm going to go see if our friends are still out there."

"Be careful," said Celes.

Kirigiri walked slowly over to the door, opened it a crack, and peered out. She didn't see or hear anyone—which was no guarantee that no one was lurking in the shadows, but she didn't want to spend the rest of the night in this boxing club, so she would have to take the chance sooner or later.

"I think the coast is clear," she told Celes.

Celes followed her out, keeping a hand on her purse—ready, Kirigiri realized, to draw her weapon should they be attacked again. They got out the door without anyone jumping out at them, which was promising, but Kirigiri wasn't going to let her guard down.

"Now where do we go?" said Celes.

Kirigiri looked around. "I see lights up that way," she said, gesturing towards one end of the street. "We might as well go towards them."

"That's as good a plan as any," Celes said.

Reaching the end of the street they'd been on, they came to a major road, lined with brightly-lit storefronts and full of people milling about even at this rather late hour.

Kirigiri laughed, a little hysterically.

"What is it?" asked Celes, sounding concerned.

"I know where we are now," Kirigiri said. "We're not far from my hotel at all. And here I was worrying that we were hopelessly lost!"

"I see," said Celes. "Shall I let you go on alone, then?"

She'd been wary of showing Celes where she was staying before, but now... if those men, or others like them, attacked again, she'd be helpless. "I'd prefer if we stayed together," she admitted. "If you don't mind."

Celes grinned. "Not at all."

* * * *

If Celes noticed that the hotel Kirigiri led her to this time was not the one she'd stopped in front of a few days before, she didn't say anything, for which Kirigiri was grateful. She couldn't say for certain how Celes ended up following her all the way into her hotel room, but she couldn't say she minded. Safety in numbers, and all that. Once there, Kirigiri sank down on the edge of the bed and rubbed her jaw, suddenly noticing the pain again.

Celes leaned over and drew a finger gently along it. "That's going to be quite a bruise, you know." 

"It's a hazard of the job," Kirigiri said. "I've had worse in the course of an investigation." She looked down at her gloved hands, folded in her lap.

Celes followed her gaze. "So, the gloves..."

Kirigiri pulled the left glove down just a little, enough to show the scar tissue, and held up her hand.

Celes winced in sympathy. "That looks painful."

"I don't have much feeling in them now, actually." Kirigiri pulled the glove all the way on again.

"Still, I can't even imagine... Do you ever wish you'd gone into some other line of work?" Celes asked.

Kirigiri shook her head. "I've always been a detective."

"Really?" Celes sat down next to her. "Even as a child, you never wanted to be a doctor or a ballerina or anything like that?"

"Never," said Kirigiri. Kirigiris were detectives, and it would be a betrayal of the family to want anything more or less than that. She wasn't her father. 

"What did you want to be," Kirigiri asked, "when you were young?"

"I wanted to be a queen," Celes said, without the slightest hesitation.

Kirigiri smiled. "Not a princess?"

"Definitely a queen," said Celes. "A vampire queen. With a great big Gothic castle in the middle of the forest, filled with beautiful vampire servants to cater to my every whim."

Kirigiri stifled a laugh. "Like Dracula?"

"Please," said Celes, hand to her chest, mock-offended. "Dracula was an ugly old man. I would rather be Carmilla."

"Carmilla?" The name meant nothing to Kirigiri.

"It's a classic vampire novel," said Celes. "You haven't heard of it at all? Don't you read?"

"Not fiction," said Kirigiri. "Not much."

"Carmilla is a vampire who appears as a beautiful, aristocratic young lady. And she preys," Celes said, leaning in towards Kirigiri and pushing aside the collar of her jacket, "on other beautiful young ladies."

Celes' lips were almost touching Kirigiri's skin, and Kirigiri could feel Celes' breath on her neck. This was a terrible idea, Kirigiri knew. She couldn't fully trust Celes, didn't know what her role was in the matter she was supposed to be investigating, was absolutely certain that Celes was still keeping secrets. But Celes had fascinated her from the start, not least _because_ she was such an enigma—confident bordering on arrogant one moment, fragile the next, never quite willing to tell Kirigiri everything she knew.

Kirigiri wanted to strip her down, to get past her defenses, to find out what she was hiding, and if that was dangerous, Kirigiri found she didn't much care. So when Celes kissed her, she kissed Celes back.

Breaking the kiss, Celes undid Kirigiri's tie and the top few buttons of her shirt, uncovering her neck completely. Kirigiri leaned her head back, bracing herself on the bed with both hands, and Celes nipped at the place where her neck met her shoulder. Then she sucked gently at the spot, her tongue running over the shallow dents her teeth had left in Kirigiri's skin.

Kirigiri shifted forward a little, inclining her head so her lips brushed against Celes' silky hair, still mussed from their earlier adventure. She ran one hand down Celes' back, following the line of the zipper on her dress. "Am I your prey, then?" she asked, with a touch of amusement.

Celes raised her head and looked Kirigiri in the eye. "Would you mind very much if you were?"

"I can think of worse things," Kirigiri said, shucking off her jacket and letting it join her tie on the floor.

"Good," said Celes, and bit Kirigiri's neck again, harder.

* * * *

Kirigiri had half-expected Celes to be gone in the morning, but when Kirigiri woke up, Celes was still asleep next to her, her head on Kirigiri's shoulder. Kirigiri eased carefully out of bed, not wanting to disturb Celes, but Celes sat up a moment later, yawning.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," Kirigiri said.

"That's quite all right," said Celes, her voice heavy with sleep. She slid languidly out of the bed, picked up her dress, and went off to the bathroom. She shut the door, and moments later there was the slightly muffled sound of running water.

Kirigiri started gathering up her clothing, putting it back on. It was fortunate that she normally wore high collars, she thought, rubbing her neck—more in self-consciousness than pain. The bruise on her face _did_ hurt, and that was going to be harder to hide, but at least it might be easier to explain away.

On her way to pick up her jacket, her foot met something soft, and something—several somethings—clattered on the floor. Looking down, Kirigiri realized she'd stepped on Celes' purse. 

Kirigiri righted the purse again and began returning the contents to their place. There was the small handgun, assorted makeup, a handful of change, some receipts.... In the midst of putting one torn scrap of paper back into the bag, Kirigiri stopped short. It wasn't the receipt she had first taken it for at all. It was, in fact, half a ticket for a train out of town. It looked familiar.

Kirigiri opened the drawer of the nightstand and took out the half a ticket she'd found in Shikiba's apartment. As she'd suspected, they fit together perfectly. So Celes had, most likely, been in Shikiba's apartment recently. Why?

The image of Celes crying in the café came back to her. _He made me... I had to..._. Togami had already included Celes in his illegal dealings, and he knew that he had threats which could keep her under control. One more person involved in his plots was one more person who could rat him out, and Celes obviously knew her way around a gun, so if he wanted to take out Shikiba, why not use her?

The bathroom door creaked open. Kirigiri looked up guiltily at Celes, who was staring straight at her, taking in the remaining contents of her purse on the floor at Kirigiri's feet, the two halves of the ticket in her hand.

"I-"Kirigiri started to say.

"Were you looking through my purse?" she asked, in a voice that could have flash-frozen a bonfire.

"It was an accident," Kirigiri said. And she probably should have left it at that, but she couldn't ignore the implications of what she'd found. She had to know. "Were you in Santa Shikiba's apartment three or four days ago?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Celes said, through her teeth.

"I found half of this ticket in his apartment and the other half was in your purse. Where did you get it?"

"Did you invite me here just to snoop through my things? Is that what all _this_ was about?" Celes waved a hand at the hotel room, the unmade bed, Celes' shoes and Kirigiri's boots and tie and jacket still on the floor.

"I tripped over your bag and the ticket fell out. I noticed it while I was trying to clean up," Kirigiri said, trying to keep her voice level. 

Celes stalked over to Kirigiri and grabbed the collar of her shirt. "You despicable, gutless, lying bitch," she snarled. "You fucking _worm_! I should have known that all you cared about was your fucking investigation. I shouldn't have expected you to have a heart as well as a brain!"

"That's not true, Celes," Kirigiri said, struggling to keep her tone of voice calm even as a little mocking voice in the back of her mind said _Isn't it? Isn't she just another puzzle to solve for you?_

"Oh really? Every other word out of your fucking mouth is my job this, my investigation that. And it's not even me you're interested in—you're just using me to get at Togami! If you like him so much, maybe you should fuck _him_ instead!"

Kirigiri shut her eyes and tried to take deep breaths. She couldn't let this get to her. "I'm sorry, Celes. I shouldn't have looked through your things, even if I spilled them by accident."

Celes said nothing, but let go of Kirigiri's shirt. Kirigiri opened her eyes again. Celes was watching her, her expression doubtful.

"I just want to know the truth," Kirigiri said. "Were you in Santa Shikiba's apartment?"

"I told you," Celes said sullenly. "I don't know anything about it."

Kirigiri steeled her nerve and asked the question she really wanted to ask, the one she was hoping that Celes would say 'no' to.

"Did you kill him?"

The color drained from Celes' face, and beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. "I don't-"

"Did Togami make you kill him?"

Celes drew a ragged breath. "I don't have to tell you anything," she whispered.

She snatched up her shoes and her purse—disregarding the things left on the floor and the ticket still in Kirigiri's hand—and strode out the door without another word.

* * * *

Kirigiri knew she ought to go after Celes, although she wasn't sure if she should be offering apologies or pursuing further avenues of questioning. And that, she thought, was exactly why the whole thing had been such a bad idea in the first place.

She told herself that going back to the photo place to see if the pictures from the camera in Shikiba's apartment were finished yet was simply an attempt to further the investigation and was in no way meant as an excuse to avoid the casino and Celes, but she knew, of course, that this was a complete and utter lie. Still, at least it was something concretely useful that she could do instead of sitting here and feeling sorry for herself, so she walked down to the photography shop.

She paid the old man at the counter and he handed over her prints, which she sorted through on the walk back to her hotel. Many of them were of nature or buildings or other odds and ends with no humans at all, but a number of them, several clearly self-taken by someone holding the camera at arm's length, were of a heavyset dark-haired man—which fit the description that the gossipy neighbor had given her of Shikiba. It wasn't an especially distinctive description, certainly, but this being Santa Shikiba's camera found in Santa Shikiba's apartment made the likelihood fairly high that this was him. The man in the pictures was wearing round, black-rimmed glasses, which the neighbor had not mentioned, but possibly she just hadn't thought it was important.

Kirigiri flipped through a few more of the uninspired non-human photos (a stray cat, a waterfall, a photo of a city street taken at a strange angle that was no doubt very artistic), and then stopped dead. She blinked and shook her head as if she might be imagining the picture and if she only were to come to her senses it would disappear. But the photo remained stubbornly in existence.

It was of Celes. What was more, it was of Celes sitting in Shikiba's flat on a sunny day, smiling sweetly at the camera.

Kirigiri's mind raced. She'd been assuming that Celes and Shikiba hadn't known each other, that even if Celes had killed him on Togami's orders, there had been no personal connection between the two of them—she'd just been a convenient tool. But if she'd known him before, then that opened up a whole range of possible motives, many of which did not necessarily include Togami at all.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Where was her proof that Celes had killed Shikiba? All Kirigiri could do was prove, or strongly suggest, that she had been in Shikiba's apartment recently, and that was hardly enough.

Kirigiri sighed, put the photographs in her jacket pocket, and kept walking towards the hotel. She just had to keep looking, she told herself. She'd find the truth eventually.

* * * *

She had been sitting in her room mulling things over—trying again and again to fit the pieces of the puzzle together in her head and coming up with a different picture every time—when there came a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Kirigiri called, half-hoping and half-dreading that it was Celes.

"I'm from the front desk, ma'am," said the woman on the other side of the door, sounding apologetic. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but there's a phone call for you."

"A phone call from whom?"

"He says his name is Makoto Naegi, ma'am."

"I'll be right there," Kirigiri said. She hoped it was good news.

Kirigiri followed the woman from the desk downstairs and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"We found something you might be interested in," he said.

"Related to the Togami investigation, or...?"

"No, it's... the other thing you spoke to me about. You told me to let you know if we found anything fitting a certain description."

So they'd found a body that might be Santa Shikiba. "Can I come look at it?"

Naegi lowered his voice. "I can get you in, but you'll have to be careful. You know how finicky the Chief is about rules."

From Kirigiri's limited experience with Chief Ishimaru, "finicky about rules" was an understatement. "I'll be cautious. I just want to confirm whether it is in fact the thing that I was looking for. Are you free now?"

"I am. I can meet you by the back door of the station."

"I'll be right there," said Kirigiri, and hung up the phone.

* * * *

Naegi was waiting for her behind the police station as he'd promised.

"I'm sorry I haven't been able to be of more help," he said, holding open the door for her.

"That's all right," said Kirigiri. "Will you show me to the morgue?"

"This way," Naegi said, leading her down the hall. "What have you found out?"

She didn't quite tell him everything, of course—the events of the previous night were not something she felt like talking about in this context. But she told him about the financial reports and the two halves of the ticket and the photos and Celes' gun, and she told him what she'd been told by Celes and the security guard and the neighbor and what she'd overheard Togami saying before she'd snuck into his office, and she explained her suspicions.

Naegi listened solemnly, saying little. "It isn't very much to go on," he said when she had finished. "We can't even be sure Shikiba is dead."

"Hopefully we will be soon," Kirigiri said.

They entered the morgue, and Naegi pulled open a drawer.

"We found him late yesterday night in a junkyard, but we think he died a few days before that," he said, not quite looking at the body. "He had no identification on him. We're checking his fingerprints against our records, but that could take some time, and I didn't think you would want to wait that long."

"Thank you," said Kirigiri. She pulled back the sheet over the body and examined it. The corpse was male, dark-haired and heavy-set, and somewhat the worse for the wear for having been exposed to the elements, though not so badly decomposed as to be unrecognizable. He had been perhaps in his twenties, and there were two bullet wounds in his chest which, from the size, seemed to have been made by a small-caliber handgun.

Kirigiri ran her hands over his limbs and looked inside his mouth. He didn't seem to have any other injuries; he hadn't fought. Probably he had been taken by surprise.

Naegi watched her examine the body. "I don't know how you can do that so calmly."

Kirigiri shrugged. "I'm used to it." To be honest, corpses were easier to deal with than living people, sometimes. "I would think you would be, too."

"I don't usually handle them directly. Oh," he added, taking several clear plastic bags from a shelf, "this is what he was wearing when he was found."

Kirigiri looked through the separately-bagged articles of clothing—a white button-down shirt, black slacks, a tie with an arrow design on it, a pair of scuffed men's dress shoes, and round, black-rimmed glasses. Then she took out the photos, comparing them to the corpse. 

The resemblance was definitely striking, allowing for the corpse's slightly distorted features. The glasses were identical, and the tie made an appearance in several of the photos as well. She showed the photos to Naegi. "What do you think?"

Naegi looked between the photos and the corpse. "It seems likely that the corpse is the man in these pictures. What did you say his name was?"

"Santa Shikiba."

"Is there anyone we can ask to identify him officially?"

"One of his co-workers at the casino, maybe. He didn't seem to have many friends."

"That's a shame," Naegi said.

"He has only been in town for a few months, apparently, and by all accounts he keeps to himself."

Just then, the door to the morgue swung open, and a young woman in a police uniform poked her head in. Kirigiri froze, but the officer didn't seem to pay her any mind.

"The chief said to tell you he wants to see you," she said to Naegi, then briskly departed again.

Kirigiri looked at Naegi with a small rueful smile. "I had better go before I get you in trouble."

"I guess you should," he said. "I'll call you at the hotel again if I find anything, okay?"

* * * *

Late that night, when Kirigiri had almost given up on getting any more news that day, a different apologetic lady from the front desk came up to fetch Kirigiri, and Kirigiri went once more to the phone in the lobby.

"What is it?" she said, with no preamble.

"Well," said Naegi, "we got a security guard from the casino, a woman named Sugimoto, to identify the body, and she says it's him, but...."

"But what?" said Kirigiri.

"We finished running the fingerprint check," he said. "And his fingerprints are in our records under the name of Hifumi Yamada."

Kirigiri thought of his odd name, his practically empty apartment, his seeming lack of connections, his apparent lack of history older than a month or so. "Do you think 'Santa Shikiba' might be a false identity?"

"It's possible. But why would he have changed his name? Hifumi Yamada had no criminal history. What would he have been running away from?"

"Maybe he wasn't running away," Kirigiri said.

"What do you mean?"

"'Santa Shikiba' appeared out of nowhere a few months ago to become a security guard at a casino—a position which was sure to get him inside information about where the valuables were and what measures were in place to prevent theft. And a theft was planned to take place, according to the call you got, on the eighteenth after 5 PM—a day when he was scheduled for duty, right after the start of his shift."

"So he might have been the thief," Naegi said. "But then who killed him, and why?"

"Well, it might still have been Togami. If he was the one who sent the thugs after me last night, he certainly would have no compunction about doing the same to someone who was planning to rob him blind. But..." Kirigiri took a deep breath, her grip on the receiver tightening involuntarily. It was harder to force the words out than she had expected.

"But there was someone else who might have done it. Someone who knew Shikiba- that is, Yamada, and seemed to be friendly with him." Kirigiri had been thinking of the photo, but now another memory came back to her—Celes sitting in a café, saying _Yamada—ah, my former assistant..._ Had she already killed him then? Kirigiri took another breath, unclenched her teeth, and continued. "Someone who was very likely in his apartment recently, who owns a gun and knows how to use it."

"Celes," Naegi said. "If she needs money so badly, she'd have a good reason to be involved in the theft. But if she and Yamada were working together, why did she kill him?"

"I don't know," Kirigiri admitted. "Maybe they had a falling-out."

"That ticket you found in his apartment," Naegi said, "it was a one-way ticket for the seventeenth of November, wasn't it? And the theft was supposed to take place on the eighteenth—so he was planning to leave town before it happened."

"Which can't have been part of the original plan," Kirigiri said, catching on, "because otherwise why do it at a date and time when he was supposed to be working? He must have had some part to play—letting her into the vault or something like that."

"So he was backing out," Naegi said. "That might have upset her enough to shoot him."

"Besides being upset, she might have wanted to keep him from going to the police with what he knew."

"Oh!" Naegi said, as if struck by some sudden inspiration. "What if he already had? The man who called us anonymously and gave us the time and date of the planned theft... it could be him, couldn't it?"

"If it was, we'll never know now," Kirigiri said. "He probably didn't tell anyone he'd done it, and we certainly can't ask him. But it does seem like a possibility."

"I guess it doesn't matter now," Naegi said. "What we need to do is find Celes—if nothing else, we should question her. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?"

Kirigiri sighed. "I'm sorry, I haven't the slightest idea. She never told me where she was staying or living, and I'm sure she wouldn't be at the casino anymore at this hour."

"She was playing in a tournament, right? How long was that supposed to go on?"

"Until the eighteenth, I think, which is..." Kirigiri glanced at the day calendar perched on the hotel's front desk. It read "NOV 18" in large, bold characters. That couldn't be right, could it? She seemed to have lost track.

"It's today," Naegi said. "So she wouldn't necessarily have a reason to be at the casino tomorrow, either." 

"By tomorrow she may have left town entirely," Kirigiri said. "I'm sorry. I should have been faster..."

"It's all right," said Naegi. "I'll let everyone here know to keep an eye out for her, especially at the train stations and the airport."

"Thank you," said Kirigiri, and hung up.

She started back up to her hotel room, berating herself for taking so long to piece things together, for not seeing through Celes faster, for letting herself get too _attached_ to see the truth. And now a murderer was, in all likelihood, going to walk away, and it was entirely her fault. If she had just figured things out one day sooner, if she hadn't wasted all of yesterday...

Reaching the top of the stairs, Kirigiri had a thought that halted her in her tracks. The fact that it was November eighteenth didn't only mean that it was the end of the tournament; it also meant that it was the day that Celes—or someone who was quite probably Celes, at least—had planned to break into the casino's vault. What if she had decided to go on with the plan, with or without her assistant? She had, apparently, put months into the plan, and Kirigiri didn't think she was the type to give up easily when she had her mind set on something. She'd have had to make a few changes to her original plan—she couldn't stroll into the vault at a busy time of day when unescorted by a security guard—but, well... there was a chance, just a chance, that she might still be there.

Kirigiri turned around and started back down the stairs.

* * * *

The casino was closed when Kirigiri got there—completely dark and deserted—but the door was unlocked. Did that mean Celes had already come this way? It didn't seem likely that someone had simply forgotten to lock it.

Kirigiri made her way through the eerily silent hallways towards the cashier cages. The wood-panelled, glass-fronted stalls were arranged in a circle, and if Kirigiri's guess was right, the vault was in the center. Even on the heavy carpeting, her footsteps sounded too loud. There must still be guards here at this time of night, mustn't there? If she got arrested for breaking in...

When she came to the cashier cages, she could see a light inside. It was small, perhaps a flashlight. Moving more carefully still, she walked around the cages until she found a door in—already open, like the front door. Perhaps she really was on the right track.

Once inside, she walked back towards the place where, from the outside, she had seen the light—and saw Celes, flashlight in one hand, fiddling with the vault door. On the floor at Celes' feet was a man in a guard uniform, unconscious. As Kirigiri watched, creeping slowly closer, the vault door swung open with a click, and Celes smirked triumphantly.

Then Kirigiri's boot squeaked a little too loudly on the floor, and Celes turned.

Kirigiri wasn't sure what she expected Celes' reaction to be. Rage, perhaps, of the kind Celes had shown in the hotel—was it only that morning? It might be yesterday morning, now, but it felt longer ago even than that.

But Celes only laughed.

"So," she said sweetly, "you've found me out. Well done. This morning I thought I still had you haring off after Togami. You seemed so receptive to the story with the poor delicate down-on-her luck innocent being forced to do unspeakable things by the big bad billionaire."

Kirigiri wasn't going to give Celes the satisfaction of knowing how close Celes had come to fooling her. "They found Shikiba's- I mean, Yamada's body. The police are looking for you now."

"And so you came to warn me," Celes said, drawing closer to Kirigiri. "How dear of you."

"That's not why I'm here," Kirigiri said. Her throat felt dry all of a sudden, and her voice came out hoarser than she expected.

Celes laughed again. "You're going to turn me in, are you? Going to clap me in irons and drag me off to the police station?"

"You don't think I will?"

"After all that we've shared?" Celes slid her hand under Kirigiri's collar, tracing the bite marks she'd left the previous night. "I don't think you have it in you." Her face was inches from Kirigiri's, and Kirigiri tried not to remember the warmth of Celes' smooth, bare porcelain skin and the feel of Celes' lips and her tongue and her teeth all over her body. 

With effort, Kirigiri stepped back. "I thought I was a cold-hearted detective, cruelly manipulating you for the sake of my investigation."

"I did say that, didn't I?" Celes smiled. "But you looked so terribly upset when I did. I couldn't have hurt your feelings if you had none to hurt, could I?"

She had to keep Celes talking; she had to keep playing for time. "You accused me of using you, and you were using me all along."

"Funny, isn't it?" Celes said. "But you know, it wasn't all a game. When we met in that bar, I didn't even know you were a detective."

Kirigiri had almost forgotten about that. "That was quite a coincidence, then."

"I was interested in you even then, and you couldn't be bothered with me until you found out I was related to your case. But you did become attached, in the end. You really wanted to protect me, didn't you? And last night..."

"I don't want to talk about last night," Kirigiri said.

"Ah, but it was such fun, wasn't it? We could do it again. I'm getting out of this city tomorrow—you could come with me." Celes leaned in again, her lips almost brushing Kirigiri's.

It would be so easy to give in, to kiss her again, to let her... but no, Kirigiri couldn't let her guard down like that again. She pushed Celes away. "You're a murderer and a thief. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"You say that, but you're tempted, I can tell," Celes said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kirigiri saw movement through the glass. "That doesn't mean I'm going to give in."

"You won't run away with me, maybe. But you won't turn me in to the police."

"You're wrong," Kirigiri said flatly, listening for approaching footsteps, hoping her timing would be right.

Celes raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"I am," said Kirigiri. "Because the police are already here."

* * * *

On the steps of the casino, Kirigiri watched Celes, in handcuffs, being escorted to a police car. She had done the right thing, she told herself. They might not have the evidence yet to make Yamada's murder stick, but with any luck they would soon—they could check the bullet wounds against Celes' gun, they could check the apartment for fingerprints. She had ensured that a dangerous criminal was apprehended, and the fact that she felt so terrible about it was entirely unreasonable.

As the car pulled away, Celes turned around, looked straight at Kirigiri, her eyes wide with something like hurt, something like betrayal. Kirigiri turned away, and looked back only in time to see taillights vanishing into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not especially concerned with geographical or historical accuracy--it is really set in Nebulous Past Era Noir-Trope Land Where Female PIs Are Unremarkable and Gambling For Money Is Actually Totally Legal In Japan--but for the curious, the setting is very, very loosely based on 1930s Tokyo. _Very_ loosely.
> 
> Thank you to all the people on my flist and the one very helpful person from Yulechat who held my hand through Baby's First Mystery-Writing Attempt and helped me hash out ideas. If the plot doesn't hang together in the end, the fault is entirely mine.


End file.
